Word is Kansas City Royals ace Zack Greinke could be available for the right price. It would seem to behoove the Twins to make an offer the Royals couldn’t resist.

The Twins, as they found out playing the New York Yankees this season, need a bona fide ace. But a deal for Greinke could cost them top prospect Aaron Hicks, a Class A outfielder whom the Twins refused to give up when they tried to acquire ace Cliff Lee from Seattle in July.

Lee has demonstrated for the Texas Rangers what a shutdown ace can mean during the playoffs.

A can’t-turn-down offer for Greinke, the 2009 Cy Young Award winner who is said to be fast becoming impatient with the Royals’ rebuilding plans, probably would have to include Twins left fielder Delmon Young and either of starters Kevin Slowey and Nick Blackburn.

Young, 25, hit .298 with 21 home runs and 112 runs batted in this season but could be expendable in a Greinke trade if first baseman Justin Morneau regains his health, Michael Cuddyer moves back to right field and Jason Kubel shifts from right to left field. Ben Revere, 22, promoted to the Twins late in the regular season, could be ready to become a fourth outfielder.

Revere, in six Arizona Fall League games for the Peoria Saguaros, has 12 hits in 23 at-bats, including two doubles and a triple, and is hitting .522. He also has stolen four bases.

Greinke, who will turn 27 on Thursday, had an off year, finishing 10-14 with a 4.17 earned-run average this season. But in 2009, he was 16-8 with an AL-best 2.16 ERA while striking out 242 in 229 1/3 innings.

Greinke is under contract through 2012 for $13.5 million a season. His contract has a clause that allows him to choose a limited number of clubs to which he cannot be traded. It’s a good bet the Twins are not among them.

In fact, during a trip to Minnesota a year ago, he expressed how much he liked Minnesota.

Kansas City appears on the way up — with a handful of baseball’s top minor league hitting prospects in third baseman Mike Moustakas, first baseman Eric Hosmer and catcher Wil Myers — but the process might not be fast enough for Greinke.

Meanwhile, the Twins could lose starting pitcher Carl Pavano, who will turn 35 in January and was 17-11 with a 3.75 ERA this season. Pavano is facing free agency and could command a $30 million, three-year contract. It’s highly unlikely the Twins would even come close to that.

The Twins’ best minor league starting prospect, Kyle Gibson, is on a fast track for the Minnesota rotation and could replace Slowey or Blackburn.

With Tim Brewster’s firing as Gophers football coach on Sunday, recruiting has come to a “standstill,” recruiting coordinator Dan Berezowitz said Tuesday.

“The university will probably honor the commitments of the kids who are committed,” Berezowitz said. “But in fairness to the new head coach, we can’t recruit any new guys.”

Berezowitz was recruiting coordinator at the University of Arizona when John Mackovic was fired in midseason in 2003.

“We basically held on to most of the guys who were committed,” he said.

The Gophers have received 13 oral football commitments from among nearly two dozen overall tenders expected to be available for the incoming recruiting class.

There was some talk Tuesday that some local dreamers will try to bring Lou Holtz, 73, back as Gophers football coach, with a master plan that Holtz’s son Skip, the coach at South Florida, would succeed his dad at Minnesota.

The late Leroy Gardner, who worked for Holtz as an academic adviser at Minnesota, described Holtz as “the most sophisticated (fibber) he had ever seen.”

Jeff Horton, the Gophers’ offensive coordinator who has been named interim head coach following the firing of Brewster, was candidly refreshing at his first media gathering Tuesday.

Asked about the possibility of becoming the permanent Gophers head coach, Horton, who lived in Nevada for 18 years, said the odds were 5 million-to-1. “On a $5 bet, that would be worth $25 million, so you could retire,” he said.

DON’T PRINT THAT

Don’t be surprised if a group of concerned Gophers supporters forms a committee to assist in the selection of Minnesota’s next football coach.

Dean Johnson of the university’s board of regents was spotted at the Gophers football offices Tuesday.

People in the know say the university’s decision to ban alcohol at TCF Bank Stadium and other Gophers athletic venues has cost the school at least $3 million annually in revenue. Now, there’s talk that allowing alcohol at games would be a way to pay the salary of a big-time football coach.

OVERHEARD

Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, commenting on Tim Brewster’s firing on Tuesday: “I’m sorry to see it. I liked Tim. He’s an easy guy to be around, an outgoing guy. I worried a little bit about him in the sense that he built up expectations for the Minnesota people, and I think he underestimated just how long it was going to take.”

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